


barely holding on

by mamaesme (ooka)



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/mamaesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kono fell in love at age 8.  He was ever so tall, but he taught her how to tackle.  His name was Chin Ho Kelly.  (And just because they are something-related cousins doesn't mean it's wrong.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	barely holding on

1.  
When Kono is eight, she meets Chin at a family gathering. Fuzzily, she remembers her inital impressions are _he’s really tall_ and the red shirt with a huge 45 on it. Her older cousin Kimo talks about Chin in a voice he usually only reserves for the chick surfers. Chin is a quarterback and the football team was going to go to championships because of him.  Auntie Mia says he could go to any college he wanted and play for them.  Instead, she says with a secret smile to Kono, that he's going to be a cop.

She didn’t care about quarterbacks, or college or anything like that. She just liked how he smiled and called her his “pretty cousin” and taught her how to play football.  Kono really likes the surprised noise he makes when she tackles him during the family game.

Her mother laughs later, pulling her away from Chin long after the sun goes down, saying something about a crush and how impressionable little girls are. Kono ignores her and beams, saying she wants to be as awesome as Chin is when surrounded by her aunts.

A nearby one laughs about crushes while Kono’s mom carries her back to the table. Her mother tilts her head and says, “They wouldn’t be the first two relatives in our family to get married and have kids. It would be better to have little Kono marry a second cousin rather than a  _haole_.” That ends any teasing people have about her crush on Chin.

 

  
Later, Kono’ll think back to that moment, drinking a bottle of beer and bitterly wonder if that’s the first day she began to choose Chin over the rest of her family, and if her mother knew it was coming even back then. She would ask, but that would mean her mother actually picking up the phone when she calls.

 

 

 

2.  
Chin always helps Kono out when she asks. She makes sure to not ask for stupid things, like her cousin Aya, because Chin is devoted to his family. He’s willing to help her convince her parents to agree when she decides to go pro with surfing instead playing a team sport at school, or she has questions about becoming a cop after she blows out her knee.

He’s the golden boy of the family, a great cop, and even engaged to a doctor, Malya. Everyone says  _Chin Ho_  with at least a little bit of awe in their voices. But he never asks for anything, just gives and smiles and helps out wherever he can and never asks for anything in return.

So when he is accused of being a dirty cop and asks for him family support, of course she says yes. She’d say yes to so much more, because he’s  _Chin_  and needs her help for once.

What she doesn’t expect is for everyone else to say _no_.

 

 

3.   
When Sid says, “I’ll do it for you”, Kono has to keep from smiling bitterly at him and replying with a sharp, _well, that’s be a first in our family_.

Because when the lines are drawn and people chose their sides, Kono chooses opposite the family. Differently from her mother, from her brothers, from her cousins and grandparents and every one she cared about. She chooses Chin, when no one else does. 

And when Chin is frozen out of the family, told not to contact them, not to come around, not to send card at holidays or birthdays, he expects it. Kono doesn’t expect the same. Doesn’t expect to be kicked out of her parent’s house, loose all their support and not receive a phone call, even when she turns 21, then 22, and onwards. 

She’s alone in the world besides Chin. Not that he knows. Whenever he asks about her mother, she smiles brightly and says, “She’s fine. I just talked to her last week” when they haven’t spoken in five years.  

 

 

(Kono wishes he would notice, but he doesn't and somewhere along the lines, she stops thinking Chin'll care if he ever finds out.)

 

 

 

  
4.  
After saving Sid, things get a little better with the family for Chin. 

Where he used to only talk to Kono, cousins and uncles and brothers begin to contact him, asking him if he wants to go to a game. Aunt and grandmother call and command him to come around and have a family dinner. Most of the time, Chin says no because some case takes up time, or he’d rather spend time with his real family, the team. 

At least that’s what he tells Kono, quietly one night, drinking beers on the porch of her apartment.

“Go see them,” she says after a while, swirling the beer left in the bottle idly. “I know you’ve missed them.”

Chin watches the bright night’s sky and doesn’t say anything, but Kono knows he’ll call Auntie Moha tomorrow and accept her dinner invitation this Sunday for the family dinner at grandmothers. Kono can’t help but be jealous because while everyone is coming out of the woodwork for Chin, no one is coming out for her.

 

 

 

5.  
The Monday after his family dinner, Chin walks in as she’s pouring herself some coffee.

“How did Sunday go?” she asks. “Sorry I wasn’t there. The waves were perfect for surfing, and I couldn’t tear myself away to deal with the fam.”

“It was,” he pauses, watching her carefully. “ _Enlightening_ , to say the least.”

Kono heads to her office, intent on getting through the paperwork from their last drug bust, because she’s the rookie and gets all the paperwork. Chin follows because looking like he wants to talk about something with the  _oh God, I have to talk about emotions _look all guys get.__

 _“_ Would you lie to me?” he asks finally, just as she sets her mug down on her desk. She doesn’t even get to sit down, so she turns, leaning comfortably on her desk.

 _“_ Yeah cuz. The sky is orange,” Kono laughs, keeping her eyes bright and smile wide. Carefully, she looks for Steve or Danny, because maybe she can use them as a distraction instead of actually dealing with the conversation she half expects is coming.

He doesn't laugh, just changes topics, “Have you talked to your mother recently?”

Kono takes care not to twitch; it’s a well learned condition over the years. “I talked to her yesterday when I called to say I couldn’t make it to dinner.”

Chin’s eyes spark dangerously, the way he does when he is truly angry and mad. “Why are you lying right now?”

“About what?” she asks flippantly, ignoring the way her heart is starting to race in her chest and the way her palms begin to sweat.

His cheek twitches. “Your mother says she hasn’t talked to you in five years. Kimo told me you’ve never met his little boy. So why do you keep saying you’ve been talking to the family when, apparently, you haven’t in five years?”

Kono shrugs, again. “They stopped answering my calls, so I stopped calling.”

“Why did they stop answering your calls?” he bites out through clenched teeth.

Kono lets the smile fall from her lips, leaving her face blank. It must disturb Chin, seeing her stop trying to fake being happy like she has for the past five years every time someone mentions her family because his expression stiffens. “You know why.”

“Tell me,” he counters, easily.

“I chose _you_ ,” she hisses, furious as she rips off the band-aid off a wound that has never healed. Because they are her _family_ , and they chose not to support her when she needed it. They all lied to her, and the only one who had ever truly supported her was standing right before Kono, pissed as Hell. “I chose you when you asked for help, and apparently choosing against the family didn’t make me popular.”

“Why lie?” he questions, watching her like he does with a suspect. Kono leans towards Chin, who is standing right before her.

“Because you didn’t want to know. You were fucked up enough losing your job, your fiancée and your family, I wasn’t going to add to that because you were barely holding it together.”

Neither of them says anything, observing the other carefully before Kono pulls back, tired and exhausted and moves to take a step around Chin to the door. Chin darts forward and catches her one arm by the hip and the other on her wrist and holds her in place. 

“Why did you choose me?” he whispers finally.

There are a million things she can say. The most expected is, _because you’re my family_ , which isn’t right. Because _you needed someone_  isn’t right either, so she lets the real words slip before she can censor herself, “Because you  _asked._ ” And that means more to him than her saying, because _I’ve been in love with you since I was eight and not like a cousin should._ But she’d never admit that.

“You should have told me,” Chin says. 

“You’re not my brother,” she returns faintly.

“And I’m not really your cousin either,” he adds, a faint smile on his lips. 

Kono’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t get much time to say anything else as Chin tilts his head and kisses her on the lips, sweet and slow. She doesn’t react at first, until he nearly pulls back and she wakes up and starts kissing him frantically.

They press closer, his fingers in her hair, and hers fisting in his shirt as they pull as close as they can together. They kiss until they run out of air, and then they kiss a little longer before they pull back, breathing heavily, foreheads pressed together.

"I was never sure why you did choose me."

Kono grins. "Kinda obvious now."

Chin just smiles serenely before leaning in for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Before someone starts the "But they are cousins, EW!" comment, I want to state that I'm unsure about how closely related Chin and Kono are. My mom told me I could marry my second cousin once removed, and we'd have "perfectly normal babies", so yes, some families are perfectly fine with that. (And no, I am not making this up.)


End file.
